Computing & Code Cadets

Canberra Grammar School offers a unique and practical computing and information technology programme as part of our academic and co-curricular offerings.

We strive to keep our offerings modern and relevant in the fast-moving world of technological change. We were the first school in Australia to teach iOS application development as part of our formal academic curriculum, the first school to adopt teaching the new Swift programming language, and the first school in the world to develop for Microsoft HoloLens. So, whether this be teaching the latest in mobile development, the latest web-standards, or working on open-source projects and contributing back to the community, we constantly update and keep our programmes on the cutting-edge of technology.

In Years 7 and 8 students have the opportunity to join the Code Cadets group, a co-curricular activity which teaches introductory Python programming.

In Years 9 and 10 students can choose Information and Software Technology as one of their elective subjects. The course teaches students to develop websites, web-based applications and iOS applications.

In Years 11 and 12 the School offers Software Design and Development as part of the Higher School Certificate. This course teaches students the foundations of the software engineering process, particularly the different approaches that can be taken to develop software, how hardware and software are related, and interpersonal skills needed by developers to work in teams.

Beyond the curriculum, students participate in:

• the Australian Informatics Competition
• Sydney University’s Python Programming Challenge
• UNSW ProgComp
• Hackathon ACT; and
• GovHack.

In 2012, the CGS team “Stack Underflow” won the Best Student Project and Best Centenary of Canberra App, with the substantial cash prizes associated with these categories.

During 2012 and 2013, students studying IT had an opportunity to visit San Francisco for two weeks during January which included touring major companies in Silicon Valley such as Google, Apple, Cisco, and NetApp. Our students were also invited to present an all-day workshop at the Macworld | iWorld 2013 Conference on iOS Development for Beginners – the most popular workshop of the entire conference. To find out more visit www.codecadets.com or watch the trip video.

Each year since 2011, the Code Cadets have also had the opportunity to visit the world’s technological leaders such as Google, Facebook and Apple on a tech experience through San Francisco and Silicon Valley, an overseas excursion like no other and one unique to CGS.